Hello World

How can we support all students in developing key digital skills?

• Raspberry Pi Foundation • Season 4 • Episode 2

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We continue our fourth season by exploring techniques, approaches and technology that teachers can use to support all their learners in developing digital skills

Full show notes:
https://helloworld.raspberrypi.org/articles/how-can-we-support-all-students-in-developing-key-digital-skills

Catherine Elliott:

Technology gives us those ways of engaging that.

Alexis Cobo:

When we have a wide variety of students, in reaching all learners?

Carrie Anne Philbin:

Welcome back to Hello World, our podcast for making. I'm Carrie Anne Philbin Computing educator and keyboard shortcuts rock star as my magic mouse has stopped working.

James Robinson:

Dun dun dun and I'm James Robinson a when it comes maybe to saving ans organising my work, but that's another story. As ever we'd really value your comments and feedback, which you can share with us at helloworld.cc/podcastfeedback.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

We've thinking about inclusion this week and Learners in developing key digital skills. James, what do we mean by digital skills? And why are they important?

James Robinson:

Well, it's interesting you ask Carrie Anne, report around this area, and we kind of talked about digital literacy or skills as the skills and knowledge required, to Be an Effective safe and discerning user of computer systems and that encompasses quite a few different areas that might be the sort of use of devices themselves, like the the physicality of devices and how we use them manipulate them and apply them properly or the applications that we run with them. It might be to do with how we handle and store the information that we're creating. How we design and create and edit content, or communicate is a really important part of this using technology and then sort of threaded through out all of that is making sure that we are able to be safe, to be moral and ethical in the way that we use technology and I guess the other thing that we might assume is that with today's modern Learners our young, people coming into school? We might assume that because they're exposed to lots of technology that they come ready made with all of this experience and these skills, but that's not really actually the case. And really from an early age. They might have experienced and developed different digital skills. And so come with lots of varied experiences. You've had to increase your digital skills and your through adversity this week, without your mouse. Does what I've described in your experience this week, Does that reflect your experience of Learners and their digital skills?

Carrie Anne Philbin:

Yeah, let's not play this down. I mean, my magic mouse dying after 8 years of use has been, has had quite the impact on my week.

James Robinson:

This has been mentioned. Several times this I can feel it.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

Don't don't dispair, a new one is arriving resume in that because it is a Magic Mouse and it works in a very Apple Way. Means that I will probably take me a few days to remember how to use it. But you know, I think what you are talking about is a debate that's been going on for a good 20 years, which is about how young people understand the digital world around them and how they they access and and use the digital world around them. Right? And I think there is this this beautiful paper that talks about digital natives, which I think are can either be incredibly contentious or can be your, your complete belief system around this. And partly it's because, you know, so many of us have young children, or are around young children and we see them interacting with technology. We see how easy and quickly they can adapt to technology. That took us maybe a little while to actually learn how to use, right. When I see my son who is four, being able to use a touch pad, you know, he can select the things he wants on a on a tablet device. He can navigate through it and he sort of has a sort of sense to use it, right? He's worked out how to use it, but he doesn't understand what's happening when he he's touching that. He doesn't understand the process that's going on. He doesn't understand the computation behind it. And I do think it is important that all people. This is where I'm on my soapbox now James. I'm very sorry, but you know, I do believe, everybody should understand have an understanding of that technology so that they can use it. And it doesn't matter where you're from, what your experience is, we need to make sure as Educators, we're providing the best experience to help everybody have an understanding of the world around them.

James Robinson:

And I guess like those specific skills that They're like being able to use a touchscreen device, right? That's something that your son has learnt to do because it helps them achieve a particular task, like for my son. For example, it's being able to play the next episode of the TV show that he wants to watch. But then you see that lack of understanding, when he tries to apply the same, same sort of skills, the same operation to a painting or something else that's completely static and does not work in the same way, but he does not understand that because he's acquired that very narrow skill based on something that he wants to get out of a device.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

Yeah, my son also thinks everything is a So yeah, it's both cute and very annoying. Well, luckily enough people don't have to listen to us talking about this. We are welcoming back. One of our favourite people in the Hello World sphere, which is Catherine Elliott, who has written the book, almost on Computing and inclusion. And she's very recently written about key digital skills for Learners with special educational needs and disabilities in issue 16 of Hello World. Thank you so much for joining us again, C atherine. What was your motivation behind that article?

Catherine Elliott:

Hello, and thank you for having me back. It's my motivation as ever is just getting this message out there that we can support all of our Learners. And I think, you know, in many Computing curricula. We have some wonderful Creative Media activities and programming and that's often the focus for teachers. And they sometimes forget the key digital skills that that children, young people need to access this in the first place. It's a bit like being able to read. If you can't read, it's very hard to access the rest of the The Wider curriculum. And if you can't log on, if you can't use a mouse and the keyboard effectively, if you don't know where to save work, then actually children can't effectively learn the rest of the Computing curriculum. And I think as you say, you know, there's this idea that children are magically endowed with with abilities to use computers and actually, they're very good at swiping on the screen. They don't know the rest of it. So we need to teach them that and and I think building this fluency and key skills. Allows that greater focus on the learning. But also for some of our young people, it's vital for their future, you know, the life and work using digital technology, you know, it's going to be such a central part of what they do to be able to use technology effectively and safely is really important. And I know the the UK government published an essential digital skills framework back in 2019. And as part of that was a survey of people. This was about adults but actually saying 21 percent, lack the full basic digital skills, and that people with a registered disability are four times as likely to be offline. And and you know, if you think about how important it is for our young people to learn those things to prepare them for later life. You know, I'm I just think it's really important so I had to write about it.

James Robinson:

Also, joining us today from far-flung Florida University of Florida in the curriculum and instruction in educational technology program. She is currently the director of educational technology and Innovation at a K through 12 Independent School in Boca Raton, Florida. Alexis your work and study focuses on disability inclusion. What does that mean in practice? And how does that align with what we're kind of talking about today?

Alexis Cobo:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm honoured to be here. So what disability inclusion looks like in practice is thinking about when we have a wide variety of students, in our classroom, how we can think about reaching all Learners? There's a really fantastic organisation Digital Promise that writes about what's called learner variability and essentially what learner variability means is that there's several different domains. There's content domain, cognition, social emotional learning and student background and some students might be really high achieving in the content area. While others may be lacking in social emotional learning. And it's about finding where students are and meeting their needs and helping them reach their Highest Potential in no matter which of those four pillars, they're successful at. So basically we all have what's called a jagged learning profile is how the learner variability project writes about it. So when thinking about disability inclusion, particularly in research, it's not so much thinking about the deficit model, but thinking about it from an ability aspect and being able to give students the tools that they need to be successful.

James Robinson:

I think that's really a. I've talked conversation occurred, but about that idea, that sort of moving away from a deficit model of thinking about how people learn and moving away from sort of, oh this is what something this learner can't do or doesn't know, or doesn't have and thinking about what they can do and what they do know, and what and I think and building on on that. And that's a really interesting kind of change in perspective around around learning. So I guess I've got a question for both Alexis and Catherine. So when we come, when it comes to digital skills and helping our all of our Learners acquire those digital skills that we've agreed, are useful, valuable and necessary. What are some of the strategies that the Computing Educators or Educators in general? Can use to help make sure their Learners are developing those skills.

Alexis Cobo:

So I think that's a really complex question

James Robinson:

Of course, of course, we don't do simple

Alexis Cobo:

Yeah, a lot of it is also because we're still CS4all movement, right? That students are having trouble accessing computer science curricula, and we're also talking about training teachers as well in Computing, curriculum. So we're coming at it from two different angles. One, How do we have teachers, who feel confident and comfortable learning, and teaching computer science. And then at the same time, how do we help, teachers feel confident, supporting all types of Learners? So it's like a twice new type of model. In thinking, about the best way to support all types of Learners. I know, in the last podcast, when you discussed this, you talked a little bit about Universal Design for Learning. There's also really great evidence-based, strategies called high-leverage practices which are supported and put out there by the council for exceptional children and we can put the link in the show notes. But essentially they're also linked to this learner variability model where they're put out there in four practice areas. One is assessment. One is collaboration and One is instructional high-leverage practices. And then one are social emotional, behavioural practices, and there are 22 different High leverage practices. So, of course, you can't do everything at once, but if you sit and think through and look through some of those practices, they they're really just good ways to approach a classroom, so that all students are successful. I think sometimes, when I speak to teachers or even myself when we're trying to think about. Well, I have a child who needs assistance in social emotional behavioural challenges. How do I meet their needs? While I have all these other challenges when you're trying to separate out, it feels overwhelming and doing too much, but if you're looking at high leverage practices in tandem with a Universal Design curriculum, then you're doing what's best for all students in your classroom. And so it might not feel as overwhelming. So a couple of those supports that could really benefit particularly Computing education are the use of scaffolding lessons. So, I know you talked about last time, the use, modify, create model or the use of the PRIMM method. Those types of pedagogies will just help students become more successful in their practices.

Catherine Elliott:

Yeah and I absolutely agree. The, I Mean, the Universal Design for Learning framework is really useful for, providing us with those, and I need to go and have a look at the high leverage practices now. I mean a couple of practical things. One of the things around, if we're looking at very basic digital skills around logging on and you know, and this is a thing that we have teachers saying it takes half the lesson just to get on the computers, you know, and a lot of that is just building fluency through routine and habit and doing things in the same way at the same time in every lesson and just building that so that children have the best possible opportunity to build up fluency and access that and also best practice in terms of using image supported prompts sort of sheets that they can work through. So they can say I do this and then I do this and then I do this just really helps and they don't have to be massively time consuming to create these, but they are incredibly useful for some Learners. So there are some things we can do as well as sort of some physical, assistive technology interventions around, making sure there are big Keys keyboards available. The roll-aboard mouse if necessary, but also the the assistive technology built into mainstream tools and anybody who's read anything I've written recently or heard me speak knows how much you know, I'm trying to push this and this does go back a little bit to the teacher skills. Doesn't it and teacher confidence if they're not aware of what's available to support our, Our Learners? Then then how are the Learners going to find this out As well?

Alexis Cobo:

Yeah. I just wanted to add to that. So this is why pairing the HLPs with UDL is so important and our research that we're doing. As part of the creative technology research lab at University of Florida is looking at this so carefully because as you said, we have these digital skills, and how do we do something as simple as guiding students through logging into a computer? One of the HLPs is the use of explicit instruction. So you're you're showing students what to do while they're having to think about a task. And so, you're breaking down the instruction into really simple, small scaffolded steps while using something like an anchor chart, which would be, you know, in UDL terms, m ultiple means of representation. So you're pairing these things together and then you just mentioned assistive technology. That's HLP 19, the use of assistive technology, so all of these things go together and when you're working in tandem, we don't even need haven't even realised or talked about that. These things are out there, but they're just like really great practices that we should be offering and doing and helping our teachers see that they're at their fingertips that that's just good practice for all of our students.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

And I see a lot now because of the pandemic, What we see particularly in England and I wonder if it echoes in other parts of the world is we're seeing sort of a greater awareness by parents, by industry, by teachers, kind of awareness there is a lack of some digital skills for some groups. And I'm wondering if you're seeing the same thing Alexis and whether or not that's playing a role in kind of there being a greater push on Educators to sort of start to, I don't know fix this in some way.

Alexis Cobo:

I can speak personally about my own contexts It's definitely been a challenge as an educator embedded in a school where we think that these children have the skills because they've been forced to being online but they've been doing this blindly without the support of teachers who are trained. It's been this emergency learning. And so now we have to go back and sort of help them through this. And it's also teachers who were doing this in emergency learning. And and so, we're we're having to Think Through number one, how can we move away from this consumerism of technology and help them feel confident to where they want to then create with technology and becoming these digital makers? And not just, well, I have to use this because I need to Zoom and get my my work done, but seeing the value of the tech as an a powerful tool that can lead to creative expression. That's what I'm seeing from. You know, my colleagues that I work with, in the building and in other schools that I have worked with and supported.

James Robinson:

It's a really interesting observation because where they said well actually let you know, through the pandemic, we saw people's digital skills increase and I think through necessity, we have seen the certain amount of that. But in a very limited and narrow way. They've learned how to wrap it. You know to get on to take part in their classes, but they haven't necessarily. As you say, learned the value of the technology Beyond its used to participate, right? They haven't engaged in that creative stuff necessarily.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

And I suspect that it probably with special educational needs and disabilities. And from underrepresented groups, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Catherine Elliott:

Yeah, I think it does to a large extent. What was interesting as well there with, with some of the lockdowns was the anecdotal evidence. Certainly that that a lot of children actually really liked interacting in this way and found ways of learning that really suited them. And I think this goes back to UDL, you know, this multiple means of Engagement and actually an expression actually technology gives us those ways of engaging with learning and we can learn so much from that.

James Robinson:

So, I was going to circle back to, to a point something. We also referenced in the last episode around inclusion. And that's this challenge around sort of as practitioners teachers, having very limited on time. That's a perennial kind of issue that we find. And then I think Alexis you were talking about, we've got this double challenge of teacher Skilling and also supporting our Learners and I wondered it was just kind of made me think like, you know, so in the UK we've had this sort of fabulous initiative, where we've been developing a curriculum for teachers to kind of give them a scaffolding set of resources for them to take into their classroom and the hope being that gives them time and room and and space to think beyond the basic kind of this is what I'm covering but gives them room to kind of think about how they can contextualise and adapt it. And I wondered if you've seen anything, if you'd agree with that kind of hypothesis, but also if you've seen other, if you've got similar entities initiatives over the states, or Catherine if you have any comments about that idea, I don't know.

Alexis Cobo:

I think that's an incredible initiative. One I wish I were part of because I think what I've seen in the research in order to move the needle in terms of teacher efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion, there has to be sustained coaching and mentoring in these skills. In order for teachers to feel prepared for inclusive practices. This is something that I'm heavily embedded in researching right now. Dr. Maya Israel, who's my mentor and my advisor and who I think is like the leader in this work in the United States. We are working on an NSF funded project called UDL4CS Universal Design for Computer Science, and we have been putting together a online resource Hub, which is available, which we'll link in the show notes and it's a place where Educators can go to they can find resources on practice that will guide them through inclusion in computer science education and most recently the project has developed what's called an interactive UDL table in computer science, so they can see videos that will walk them through what each of the checkpoints in UDL means for computer science. So we've got CAS, that gives us an amazing guide for using UDL in general. But what is this mean in computer science? So it's an interactive UDL table that then also links to other resources. And then we're also in the process of building out teacher case studies where we've identified these amazing practitioners who are embedded in doing this work. And so this UDL4CS website will also highlight these practitioners and then, you know, we're also researching and, and doing some of these studies with large school districts, that hopefully we can report back on and, and share that work and doing professional development on the ground in these different school districts.

James Robinson:

You'll have to come back and share, share Catherine. Did you want to add anything?

Catherine Elliott:

Firstly, I mean, all of that. I'd seen some haven't looked at the case studies and the videos yet. So I can't wait to get involved in seeing those. And one thing that struck me was, this was less from a Computing point of view. But from a school point of view. I've been working with a trust in in Manchester. And one of the senior leaders who is responsible for SEND was looking at creating a inclusive learning policy around effective use of technology in school and that this would be trust wide and would give teachers basically an idea of what is best practice in using technology to support Learners. So not just in Computing, but across the whole curriculum, which is incredibly important. I think that we're not just siloing technology in this one subject area and that would then include advice on the assistive technologies that they could use but also the general pedagogy that we can use to help children, you know, access things with technology as well. And I though, you know, for me, I need to go back and see where that bit of work is up to you because for me, you know, every school should have one of these really and and how great would that be that teachers could have a resource to sort of really understand the things that they can do to assist children and in the use of technology and access to learning better?

James Robinson:

And if they've not going to think about it as of decided and agreed and it's one less thing for them to think about, they can then focus on how it applies to their learners. So I think we've talked a lot about how we support digital skills, but maybe if we just sort of circle back as well, a little bit. What are some of the advantages that we are likely to see across all of our Learners, if we support the development of these digital skills, and that might be within our Computing classrooms. It might be across the school. And also if it's not too big, a question all at one go, what are the challenges? And how do we support this across the whole entire school? There we are, it's a multi-part question. Catherine. Do you want to start on that one?

Catherine Elliott:

I'll get going with that one. So erm, I mean challenges was talked a little about this about, you know, there might be some physical challenges, then might be challenge around sort of cognitive load and, you know, Learners with learning difficulties, or communication difficulties or just learners having a bad day, you know, might find that if they're having to focus on one part of, you know, a lesson around just getting going with technology then actually they're not focused on the learning and so fluency will help with that one and the the better sort of digital skills that children have the more confident they are with using computers and more engaged in in lessons. There is a challenge around generalisation of some of the sort of digital literacy Online safety messages, for some of our Learners who perhaps can take on those sort of messages in a very specific sense. So they know I don't talk to strangers, you know, online but then they go and play Xbox and they meet people through that, but they're not strangers. They're my friends. And, and and generalising some of those messages is is really is really difficult and there's no simple way of mitigating that challenge really other than exposing children to lots and lots of different situations and practicing that behaviour and modelling that behaviour. And obviously, that part of around a digital skills is absolutely vital for young people to be safe and responsible, use of technology and that I think has to be the Forefront of most Educators Minds when we're thinking about digital skills. And then how we, perhaps develop digital skills alongside Computing, in The Wider School, other than an inclusive learning policy. And some of the things I've been thinking about are actually just every teacher using technology thinking about how they model effective and responsible use of technology and almost, you know, make it visible, what they're doing. So I talk to people who are working in the early years. So with children, you know, three, four, five years old, and actually talking about well I'm going to go and use the internet now and I'm going to search for something. And this is how I do this and making it a lot of the things more visible because I think technology over the last few years has made things. So seamless that we don't know when we're using, internet technologies and when going on the world wide web, for example, and so I think that modelling is really really effective and just thinking about the wider use of technology in other curriculum areas. How can we build on the work That's done in Computing, lessons and use that effectively in any other places, but I know that that's something that's really really tricky. Because of time and resources and teacher confidence, but that would make a huge huge huge difference. if we could just build on that and have some consistency through school about what children are doing.

Alexis Cobo:

I would say that one of the biggest Is there are legal implications for students with disabilities under the idea law individuals with Disabilities Act that they are provided their services. And so oftentimes what that means is§ that students are pulled out for a variety of reasons during computer science or Computing classes for other services? So it's a matter of even giving them the opportunity to be exposed to Computing education and digital skills. So it's just getting them the the actual exposure and the and the education and we don't often know they might be in the class, but we don't know if they're really there, and they're being counted. So, that's a huge Challenge. And then the other thing is, is that content is so siloed. And I think Catherine you, you touched on this a little but it's about helping helping Educators see the value of integrating technology, computer science, digital fluency skills across content areas in that computational thinking, making should happen everywhere, not just during the specific class time. Because that will really build the skills. No matter what, if we're talking about inclusion, or about students, in general. So that is still, I think a really huge barrier to overcome.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

And if people wanted to learn more about what you online, do you have like a Twitter handle or, you know, is there a web address that they could go to Catherine? I'll start with you.

Catherine Elliott:

Yes, people find me on Twitter I'm sure that will go in the show notes somewhere and I have a regular column in Hello World Inclusive Classroom that people can read and see what I'm thinking about at the moment.

Alexis Cobo:

People can find me on Twitter @agatorbites.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

I mean, this is a topic that really resonates We've asked for teachers to share their strategies, which they're using their Learners to support them with developing key digital skills and Ms Haughs on Twitter Amanda Haughs who I think was in our first was our very first ever podcast episode guest got in touch to say, I try to make sure content is presented in various formats, text visuals. Video teacher demo diagrams, peer tutoring, and that students access that content at their own pace, which I think we've talked about today.

James Robinson:

Yeah, and also picking up on that kind of point is Emma Posey who talked about two things. So firstly instilling Universal Design principles in all resources and teaching it to students and helping them to see it within their projects, as well as their documentation and also, allocating learning time to give guidance on the tools that are available to them. So those things that Catherine sort of is was talking about earlier on actually giving them some explicit instruction in the tools that they can use to support their learning being really valuable.

Carrie Anne Philbin:

If you've got a question for us or a comment email via podcast@helloworld.cc Or you can tweet us at @HelloWorld_Edu. My thanks to Catherine and Alexis for sharing their vast experience. And Expertise with us today. I'm sure we'll have them back to talk again on this topic because there's just so much to talk about. Next time. We'll be talking about fighting inequality, both with and within Computing experiences. So James, what did you learn today?

James Robinson:

I learnt a lot about just the importance of really interested to go away and have a bit more of a read Around High leverage practices, which is not something I'd come across. So I'm going to go away and read that now. How about you Carrie Anne?

Carrie Anne Philbin:

Well, I've learned. I think that I might need to go and check that my Xbox friends, are my Xbox friends. So I'm just going to go and do that.